Scoundrels (Law & Order episode)

"Scoundrels" is the 97th episode of NBC's legal drama Law & Order, and the ninth episode of the fifth season.

Plot

A lawyer is found shot to death in his office. The detectives find that the lawyer was running a confidence game where he targeted the victims of a savings and loan collapse. He told these people that he could recover the money that was hidden by the chief executive prior to the collapse.

The son of one of the victims was identified leaving the lawyer's office after his mother wrote a check to the lawyer, causing the detectives and prosecutors to focus on him. The defense is able to show that the son had the check canceled before the murder, obviating the motive to kill him.

Meanwhile, the prosecutors find that the lawyer, in fact, did find where the money was hidden, and blackmailed the chief executive to stay quiet. This gives the executive motive to kill the lawyer, but he had an alibi on the night of the murder. Claire Kincaid puts the two suspects together and discovers a phone call from the son to the executive one hour before the murder.

Jack McCoy offers a plea of manslaughter to the son in return for testimony against the executive for murder by depraved indifference. The son testifies that he was offered all of his money back from the executive in return for murdering the lawyer. After being reminded that they are to judge only about the facts of the murder and not the executive's past, the jury returns a guilty verdict.